J.D. Salinger died yesterday at the age of 91. In many ways, as R. remarked, it seemed as if he had already been gone for many years: his reclusive life included locking out the world from any new writing. I wonder what we would have gotten to read had he continued to publish, had he written for his readers rather than for himself (as he reportedly claimed). It will be interesting to see if any of his later writing becomes public. The New York Times had an informative piece about him here.
When I read The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, it was, not surprisingly, the titular passage that stuck with me most:
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.
As R. said, take Catcher or Nine Stories or Franny and Zooey off the shelf, and read Salinger at his best.
—C.
Image courtesy of boston.com
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